ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

COLUMBIA, Mo. — There was balance, and there was force.

Through 39 minutes and 10 seconds of game time, No. 15 Missouri and No. 10 Texas A&M had played competitive basketball. Their contest was a tad low-scoring, chippy and chock-full of fouls but undeniably even.

Entering the final 50 seconds, the Tigers and Aggies had 64 points apiece. They had taken the same number of shots: 52. They had the same number of offensive rebounds: 11. And they’d each been whistled for 19 fouls.

There was a disruption, then a defeat. Two possessions defined a hard-fought game, and those saw Mizzou foiled and Texas A&M victorious: a 67-64 result through a game-winning 3-pointer from Aggies guard Wade Taylor IV.

It’s a lesson — if you subscribe to the coaching cliche that losses are lessons — written in the margins of the Southeastern Conference textbook. For all the talk of starting lineups and rotations and the magnitude of any given possession, sometimes the game boils down to who scores last.

“I thought the important thing was that we took the last shot,� Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams said, “considering all that had transpired, particularly in the second half. We wanted to make sure that it was the last shot.�

“The ironic thing about this conference: You can play well and still lose a game,� Missouri coach Dennis Gates said. “That’s how good this conference is. We lost our last two games by a total of seven points — to two top 10 teams. One on a last-second shot, last-second 3. How much better do you want our guys to play?�

The Tigers, who at 17-6 overall and 6-4 in SEC play are still having a great season, have lost two games in a row. On Wednesday, that was to a No. 4 Tennessee team that shot the 3 in one game better than any other stretch this season. On Saturday, that was to the Aggies, who hack and claw their way to rebounds and rock-fight wins — and who executed better on the two key possessions.

A&M started the game on a 12-0 run to put early strain on the Missouri offense. The Tigers answered with a 12-0 run of their own early in the second half, taking back the lead while holding the visitors scoreless for more than seven minutes.

That was the recipe for a score of 64-64 when MU guard Marques Warrick dribbled the pass across the half-court line with 41.5 seconds remaining.

He shifted toward the left side of the floor as fellow guard Tamar Bates cut across. Warrick then migrated right, getting a switch when forward Mark Mitchell’s defender stuck with him. Warrick looked briefly toward Mitchell in the post, now with a smaller defender on him, but drove with his left into the lane.

With one foot just beyond the free-throw line, Warrick stopped and spun. He pivoted, a 720-degree exploration of the options around him. The offensive set, it seemed, was on the verge of stalling.

Gates stood on the sideline with his hands on his hips and a timeout in his pocket.

“Hindsight is 20-20,� Gates said. “I could have taken the timeout — I had one to burn. I just thought we were going to be able to get something but our spacing got a little congest and we had to throw up a tough shot. That’s on me.�

Missouri played on. Warrick dumped the ball out to guard Caleb Grill, the sharpshooter who was held to an 0-for-4 night from 3-point range by Texas A&M’s blanketing off-ball defense. Grill, in turn, left the ball and seven seconds on the shot clock to Bates at the top of the key.

Bates, Mizzou’s leading scorer on the day with 16 points on 5-for-17 shooting, bounced out to the left and crossed the ball between his legs at the sideline. With four seconds on the shot clock, he passed the 3-point line.

And with 3.3 seconds on the shot clock, Bates rose above two A&M defenders for a midrange jumper. The shot clanked high off the back iron and dropped into the clutches of the Aggies.

Williams called his timeout to make the most of the possession he knew needed to be the last.

After both teams huddled up to plan, Taylor advanced the ball for Texas A&M, entering MU’s half with 8.4 seconds left in the game. He bounced the ball to Aggie forward Andersson Garcia, who was standing at the left elbow as part of a “Horns� formation.

Then Taylor, picked up by Warrick, cut down along the curve of the 3-point line. He checked his progress a few steps into the move and looked back to Garcia — this was the look A&M had drawn up in the huddle.

As Garcia took a single dribble closer to his teammate, Warrick’s focus shifted toward trying to deflect the ball away from the opposing big man. This was also part of the look. Taylor and Texas A&M expected MU to “switch everything,� as the guard explained it. With his defender’s attention and hips squared in the wrong direction, Taylor shifted a little farther wide.

With 4.5 seconds left on the clock, it was evident Warrick had gambled wrong. He’d reached past Garcia and even farther past Taylor, who now had a pocket of open space.

With 4.1 seconds to go, the ball hit Taylor’s hands.

“He’s fearless with the appropriate amount of humility,� Williams said of his guard, who was 2 for 8 from 3-point range ahead of the shot he was about to take.

With 3.7 seconds, the shot left Taylor’s hands.

“Thank God that I made it,� he said.

A desperation heave from Missouri with the sliver of time that remained after Taylor’s game-winning 3 soared wide.

“We knew who was going to shoot the ball,� Gates said. “I think everybody in the gym knew that. At the end of the day, he made a shot and we got to live with it. Ultimately, if it was up to me, I would do the same lineup that was out there defensively.�

In delivering Mizzou its first home loss of the season, Texas A&M broke a tie with the Tigers for third place in the SEC. The defeat is far from catastrophic for MU, which is still on pace to make the NCAA Tournament.

And Missouri is not far from having had a much better week — the kind that would have propelled it into the top 10 and national spotlight. Instead, against Tennessee and Texas A&M, the margins got the better of Mizzou.